Sailor cooks up on a sustainable showboat redolent of fish'n'chips

By Steve Meacham

October 15, 2010 — 3.00am

FOR Inigo Wijnen, ''the floating Dutchman'', there are unexpected advantages of being an eco-sailor, green adventurer and environmental boat builder.

Take, for example, the seductive scent of fish'n'chips whenever he turns on the engine of Gaiasdream, one of only a handful of fossil-fuel-free yachts in the world. Instead of diesel, the twin-hulled vessel has been designed to operate on recycled vegetable oil which has often previously been used for frying fish.

Eco-warrior ... Inigo Wijnen and his twin-hulled Gaiasdream designed to operate on recycled vegetable oil.Credit:Dallas Kilponen

The 40-year-old Dutch-born Australian resident has spent the past 14 months building the 22-metre-long craft as a showcase of sustainable design and engineering. Inspired by the traditional proa, a centuries-old voyaging craft of Micronesia, the Amsterdam-registered Gaiasdream is built almost entirely from sustainable Australian plantation timber.

Advertisement

When it is finally finished - rain has delayed construction of the main cabin between the hulls - its electrical needs will be provided entirely by solar panels on the rooftop.

Wijnen sailed his creation into Sydney Harbour yesterday from his usual mooring in Pittwater for a temporary berth at the Australian National Maritime Museum. This weekend Gaiasdream will be one of the main drawcards of the 2010 Classic & Wooden Boat Festival, which has a recycling and restoring theme this year.

Tomorrow Wijnen will deliver a 30-minute talk on the technology behind the boat - and his forthcoming voyage across the Pacific with his 11-year-old son Joshua to protest about inaction on manmade climate change.

''The main aim is to highlight the plight of Pacific islanders,'' explains the veteran of several Greenpeace campaigns. ''Australia is the largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. We are lagging behind on real climate action because of our dependence on fossil fuels.

''Our closest neighbours, the small island states of the Pacific, will be some of the first climate-change casualties.

''Gaiasdream shows there are practical climate-friendly solutions to age-old challenges such as moving cargo around the region.''

Wijnen, who has lived in Australia for 16 years, has raised Joshua single-handedly on various boats since the child was four months old. In December father and son will load a car aboard the Gaiasdream and sail across Bass Strait to prove the boat's load-bearing capability.

Then in February they will set sail on an ambitious environmentally themed 16-stop, five-month voyage from Newcastle to New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Tahiti then back to Sydney.